Did MSFT take over the Internet? Bad URLs goes to microsoft?

xtaski

I accidentally copy/pasted this URL into a web page I wrote (obviously the double http://http:// was a typo when I copy/pasted):

http://http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=406459

The Odd part is that when I clicked on the bad URL, www.microsoft.com came up?? What the heck? I'm using Firefox on Gentoo Linux... I can guarantee I do not have any preferences set to microsoft.com... Can anyone explain?

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

When a site isn't found in DNS in Firefox, it searches Google's "I'm feeling lucky" to get the site to go to. In this case, it is searching for "http". Try typing that into Google and you will see why it goes to Microsoft - they are the first search result.

ChristyMcJesus · Apprentice Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 184

I just tried it. http://http//www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=406459 returns no documents. http//www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=406459 brings up an infoworld article.

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

It depends on your settings, both browser and DNS server. For me it just brings up a 404 from my router.

30726 · Veteran Joined: 24 Sep 2003 Posts: 1501

I'm a bit puzzled as to why a Google search on "http" would bring forth Microsoft.com as the first result...

Omega21 · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 7:43 pm Post subject:

Im very suprised that Mozilla decided (stupidly) to rely on an external source with their browser. I also am disappointed that they use
Google internally like that..

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ChristyMcJesus · Apprentice Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 184

xtaski · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject:

Ok, so I get why this happened now:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=http%3A%2F%2F&btnG=Google+Search

Firefox automatically uses a google search for "http://"

I'm surprised microsoft.com shows up first - why? I would think Google/Firefox of all companies would not send everyone by default to microsoft.com...

LucaSpiller · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

If you want to change what search engine it used have a look at browser.search.defaulturl in about:config.
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xtaski · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:20 pm Post subject:

I can figure out how to not use Google in Firefox but I don't want to ... I'm curious as to why Google points "http://" to microsoft as #1? It's not even "paid for"

hans0r · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:41 am Post subject:

duh! because they invented the internet! :roll:

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

I wouldn't be suprised if it was because of those stupid looking pages that IIS sends by default for 404, 403, etc. They probably contain the URL (and hence the word http) and I think they link to microsoft.com (don't have one handy to check). That might cause them to get highly ranked by Google since those error pages are extremely numerous and spread out over a large number of different servers.

amne · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:18 am Post subject:

This has been discussed a couple of times, e.g. here.
Moved from OTW to Duplicate Threads.
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